Monday goals

So, it’s been a week since the ALA Youth Media Awards were announced (you know – Newbery, Caldecott, Printz, etc.) and it’s been a week of discussing and reading opinions on blogs and listserves and the like. I haven’t actually done any reading of the award winners (cough), but my holds have started rolling in and I’m looking forward to getting started, once I clear one or two things off my shelf (things that absolutely cannot be renewed one more time).

All of the blog reading and discussing has got me thinking about the books that I never get around to reading – the ones that win the not-as-famous awards, the books that are getting some attention but not as much, the awards that get overlooked. Liz has a post about the Schneider medal, which I noticed (and ordered) this year, but would I have noticed as much if I hadn’t already been familiar with the teen winner, Marcelo in the Real World? And if I hadn’t heard buzz about the middle-school winner, Anything But Typical? I dunno.

Then, oh boy, there are the recent cover controversies – the ongoing issue of characters being depicted as white when they are in fact not. It’s bad enough when you don’t feel like the cover illustration/photo suits the book or matches the character’s personality, but whitewashing? Ugh. Again, Liz has a good overview of the cover issue, and Colleen has passionate summary with plenty of links and some great discussion in the comments.

After toying around with the idea for a while (am I really organized enough?) I thought I’d join the POC Reading Challenge. While I’d like to think I read books with characters from a variety of racial backgrounds already, this will be a way to make sure. Plus, as a librarian – as someone who’s ordering books and putting them into the hands of children – I feel some responsibility to make sure there’s access to quality and variety in my collection. I need to know what’s out there, be able to talk it up, and do my little part to show publishers that variety is needed.

A slightly unrelated goal is to read all of the award winners from this year (I took off the life-time acheivement awards and the Arbuthnot lecture – I’ve read books by all of the winners, so I figure that counts – Walter Dean Myers, Jim Murphy, and Lois Lowry). Yikes. Did I just say that? Let’s see what that list would look like (taking off the ones I’ve already read):

“The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg” by Rodman Philbrick

“Going Bovine,” written by Libba Bray

“The Monstrumologist” by Rick Yancey

“Punkzilla” by Adam Rapp

“Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, Deputy U.S. Marshal,” written by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson

“Moribito II: Guardian of the Darkness,” written by Nahoko Uehashi, illustrated by Yuko Shimizu, translated by Cathy Hirano

A mere 29 books! And several of them are early readers or picture books. Totally possible. The question is how long it will take to cross them all off my list. Also, several will fit into the POC Reading Challenge.

I’m not sure if I’ll attempt the Alex Awards, but that would be a good list to familiarize myself with – and it never hurts to have some adult titles to recommend to adults, too. So much harder than recommending to kids! You can tell where I belong. Here’s the Alex list, in case I’m feeling even crazier:

Alex Awards for the 10 best adult books that appeal to teen audiences

“The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope” by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer, published by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
“The Bride’s Farewell” by Meg Rosoff, published by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group
“Everything Matters!” by Ron Currie, Jr., published by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group
“The Good Soldiers” by David Finkel, published by Sarah Crichton Books, an imprint of Farrar, Straus and Giroux
“The Kids Are All Right: A Memoir” by Diana Welch and Liz Welch with Amanda Welch and Dan Welch, published by Harmony Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House
“The Magicians,” by Lev Grossman, published by Viking Penguin, a member of Penguin Group
“My Abandonment” by Peter Rock, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
“Soulless: An Alexia Tarabotti Novel,” by Gail Carriger, published by Orbit, an imprint of Hachette Book Group
“Stitches: A Memoir” by David Small, published by W.W. Norton & Company
“Tunneling to the Center of the Earth” by Kevin Wilson, published by Harper Perennial, an imprint of HarperCollins

Flickr Photos

4 comments

I have some suggestions for chapter books of asian american authors: sook nyul choi, grace lin, linda park and mitali perkins. I blogged about grace lin’s latest, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon at http://pragmaticmom.com. I am always on the lookout for authors of color in the children’s lit arena because that is an exciting development from when i was a kid. i also have some great picture books from african-am authors and/or about afr-am history in my post Favorite Picture books. Hope this is helpful to you.

I think I’m going to join the POC Reading Challenge as well. And I too have a lot of awards books to catch up on. Actually, I’m planning to spend my weekend making lists of all the books I want to read this year!

BB, I think the latest Rosoff was published as an adult book, so that puts it into Alex territory, not Printz – those awards are all about which audience the publisher stated (I think Rosoff’s American publisher just went adult with her latest – the rest were YA, I think). Adam Rapp’s book is on the Printz list, not the Alex – did you mean someone else?

Thanks for the suggestions, PM. I really liked Where the Mountain Meets the Moon – need to go back and read her others. I’m also a fan of Lisa Yee and Lenore Look.

Kristi, I always think making lists is half the fun (and I’m sure BB agrees with me on that one).